The federal government will be requiring high school English teachers to drop Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and…who knows…maybe Stephen King to make room for reading “Executive Order 13423: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management.” You think this is a joke? Or maybe a synopsis of a George Orwell story? No. It´s an example of how the Common Core State Standards in English, a new government requirement for the "public schools" will work.

From Santa Virginia, I’m retiring. I’ve already deleted my database, put the sleigh up on Craig’s List, and changed forever into civilian clothes. Mrs. Claus and I have sublet our cottage here to a Russian drilling crew (they insist they own the North Pole anyway) and we’ve sold the workshops to a Chinese toy manufacturer. For ourselves, we’ll be moving to Malta, at least for awhile...

40) Apparently, our jobless rate is so darned low because a bunch of people gave up on ever finding a job again. So consider us only halfway to Mad Max at Thunderdome and conducing cage fights to determine which of the remaining humans gets the privilege of eating tuna fish out of a can. Given the timeline, you should start praying for the zombie apocalypse now. — Emily Zanotti

In a piece titled “Delusions of Wisdom” (“without a hint of irony”) Paul Krugman weighed in on the state of economic journalism these days.(snip)You can’t blame Pauly for having a big head; after all, how many other economists have been singled out by Big Guy as one of the really Big Brains - and in the prestigious business journal Rolling Stone no less.
So in case you’ve been at a loss to explain what’s going on here in After America, there it is: the culture has been taken over by fake news entertainers, communist economists and anti-Semite bloggers.

"This week, the Wall Street Journal’s John D. McKinnon and Andrew Ackerman are reporting that House Speaker John Boehner “is willing to consider curbing the tax-exempt status of municipal-bond interest, subject to negotiations with the White House.”

Reality check…the only reason investors buy muni bonds is because of the tax exempt status. They pay less interest than other bonds that are already taxed so if they are gonna tax the muni’s….might as well get the higher interest rate. So what happens then?

Regular readers of "The Lid" know that my friend John Hawkins is master of the list post. I don´t know where he finds the time for all the research but his latest The 40 Best Political Quotes For 2012 is exceptional (even though it doesn´t include me):
For example

As you know the UN General Assembly recently gave the Palestinians "Observer State" status for its corrupt institution. It doesn´t matter to them that the government they now call a state and its controlling party (Fatah) is still calling for violence and/or the destruction of Israel.
Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah leaders “bless Hamas,” “praise and salute” the launching of rockets against Israel, and even advocate “armed struggle.” Fatah Central Committee members have recently lauded Hamas and Islamic Jihad for their rocket attacks against Israel and/or promoted the use of armed struggle.

Under Obamacare, seniors pay higher taxes for the honor of being rejected for necessary treatments. Higher taxes on drugs took effect last year and beginning on January first unless some Democratic Party senators have their way, there will be a tax on medical devices. Each of these taxes will hurt seniors the most as they are more heavily dependent on these products.
The medical device provision of Obamacare imposes a excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.3percent of the wholesale price. The items taxed include devices crucial for our older citizens, such as pacemakers, hip joint replacements, powered wheelchairs,

The workers you see in this video "allegedly" getting drunk and high while on the job at Chrysler were fired. Then they were rehired in arbitration due to what the arbitrator said was a lack of evidence. You watch. You decide!

Approximately every ten years, Marin County floods. Thinking back, the last big flood year in our neighborhood was around 2002 or 2003. I remember taking the kids down from the hill on which we live to the marshy flat-lands nearby. We waded through water that came up past our knees. This high water was a combination of heavy rain and unusually high tides.

So now, with less than two weeks to go till the Big Day, it´s time to say it.
All together now: "Merry Christmas!"
Say Merry Christmas to everyone you meet.
Say it to everyone and anyone from now through Christmas Day.
Say it and say it and say it again.
Don´t hesitate. Don´t worry. Don´t even

The State Bar of California, which I have to pay into in order to practice law in the State of California, long-ago abandoned its core responsibility of ensuring that people who hold themselves out as lawyers to California citizens are at least minimally qualified. As with all these mandatory organizations, it’s turned into a political advocacy group and, again in sync with all these mandatory organizations, it advocates Left.

I wrote a few days ago about the fact that the State of California Department of Education has gone after the Kentfield School District in Marin County, because the District’s food program relies on PTA volunteers, rather than on paid union members. Our local paper has an update on the story say that, for the time being, the School Board has decided to continue with business as usual, rather than acceding to the State’s demands. What I love about the most recent report is a single sentence. Look upon it and marvel:

"If union adversaries can pass a right-to-work law in the home of the once-powerful United Auto Workers, they can pretty much do it anywhere."

I say GOOD.

For centuries, Unionism once had a prominent place in Western commerce for a good reason: strength in numbers to improve working conditions (safety, benefits, etc.). During the previous century, many of those improvements were enshrined into law at the federal and state level (osha, work comp, wage & hour, eeoc, etc).

Referenced Article written by With friends like THIS, who needs Democrats?Post Reply

William Kristol, Editor of the Weekly Standard, seems to have decided that retreat is the way forward for the Republican Party. In a new editorial that approaches a meltdown, the Fox commentator and consummate Washington insider essentially advised the GOP to just throw in the towel on these fiscal cliff talks and more or less accept Obama´s terms.

TIME has one of those lists that we always start to see as the year comes to a close. This one is the top ten best and worst places in the world to live. Sadly, there isn´t a single place in the U.S.A. on that list.

Referenced Article written by Poor Old Media lapdogs. Obama kicks them again.Post Reply

The Old Media establishment is worried that Barack Obama is going to cut them out from his second swearing-in ceremony. As Politico reports, rumors abound that this time ´round Obama is going to hold a private ceremony, one not open to the media.